Schwimmzentrum Rüttenscheid

The water in both pools is crystal clear.

There are no marked lanes in the 25m pool. Swimmers do not swim laps in lanes; it's a bit chaotic; very few swim freestyle.

But you would want to use the 50m pool with its separated lanes, anyway. Depending on the time of day, some or most of the lanes are taken by teams and schools, but there are at least two lanes kept open for the general public. It may get crowded. There are no signs posted about speed, so you can have a slow breast stroke swimmer (or worse) in your lane.

The center opens at 6:30 AM (8 AM on Sundays) and is closed on Mondays. The 50 meter pool closes to the general public at 4 PM on weekdays, 2 PM on Saturdays, and 3 PM on Sundays (two lanes are open to the public on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 8 to 9:30 PM). The 25 meter pool is open until 9:45 PM on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 7 PM on Thursdays, 6 PM on Saturdays, and 3 PM on Sundays and holidays.

This facility can be reached by the 145 or 146 bus routes from the road passing underneath Essen Hauptbahnhof. It can be found about 200 metres from the Paulinenstraße bus stop.

Lockers (requiring a refundable €1 coin deposit) are accessed via gender specific ranks of individual cubicles with separate dry and wet side doors.

At the time of my visit (6:30 AM), six lanes in the 50 metre pool were taken up by squad training. The remaining space (the combined width of two competition lanes) accommodated about 60 lap swimmers of widely varying speeds (some very slow indeed, many also requiring recovery time at the end of each length); there was no discernible lane discipline. Two swimmers were attempting freestyle, one backstroke. With a view to self-preservation, all of the others (including me) were using heads-up breaststroke. Swimmer behaviour in the adjoining 25 metre pool was even less conducive of anyone being able to have something approaching a decent workout. I completed my usual daily 1,000 metres, but – unusually for me – I was glad when I had finished. The only redeeming feature was that the admission price (€2 for customers arriving between 6:30 and 8 AM) was really low. I left wondering why the management open the pool to the public for early morning sessions at all, if they are only able to make such a small part of the facility available for general use.